DANGEROUS RELIGIOUS GROUPS
DRG
DANGEROUS RELIGIOUS GROUPS
1. Idealism. DRGs are often made up of disppointed idealists who have been burned in traditional churches. They believe God has raised them up to accomplish what others have failed to do. Their vision is to recoverthe lost purpouse of the church.
2. Authority. Those who are looking for unambiguous direction, boundaties, and security are drawn to the safety in structure that authoritarian leadership provides.
3. Enthusiasm. People who have had a taste of dead orthodoxy will be especially attracted to an enthusiastic spiritual experience. Few discoveries are more appealing than finding a group excited about what it has-even if the group is wrong.
4. Family. Within a dangerous group there is often an intense sense of identity and family. family members are viewed as brothers and sisters, united against the outside world. Their unity is not found in God, however, but in their “father,” mentor, and teacher.
5. Biblical Emphasis. Many DRGs give much attention to Bible study. But their learing is often carefully orchestrated by clever leaders who provide their own interpretation of Scripture. Members are warned about reading authors who are outside of their group.
6. Sacrifice. Former members of DRGs say that one of the things that was so appealing was that the group asked them for a sense of commitment and belief that cost something. One member says, “It doesn’t start out that you are the only ones who have the truth, but that you are the only ones making sacrifices for the truth. I didn’t want anything cheap. I wanted something that cost me for my commitment.”
7. Exclusivism.DRG members often develop the belief that they alone have been entrusted with the truth. The opportunity to be a part of a select group of God’s chosen servants is attractive.
8. Indoctrination. An additional mark of many dangerous Religious Groups is their use of sophisticated methods of recruitment and coercive persuasion. Rather than allowing converts to make decisions of faith based on their own sense of good judgment, some groups break down individual thinking by one or more of the following techniques:
Isolation. Rcruits are isolated from family, friends, and news media in order to screen out opposing points of view.
Peer-group Pressure. Potential converts are subjected to intense persuasion by group members.
Love Bombing. Group members give prospects an overwhelming sense of acceptance, belonging, and significance by “bombing” them with flattery, toudhing, and hugging.
Removal of Privacy. Recruits are never left alone to collect and discover their own thoughts.
Sleep Deprivation and fatigue. A person’s resistance is broken down by long meetings and extended work hours.
Games.Complex games are played for the purpose of creating a sense of dependence on the rule-giving leader.
Mind Control. Members are conditioned to stop thinking and to accept without question the revelations and doctrines of their leader.
Confession.The self-respect of members is broken down through persuading them to share their innermost secrets with the group.
Change of Deit. Members are provided inadequate nutrition, which breaks down their resistance and makes them vulnerable to suggestion.
Fear. Negative throughts or doubts about the group or its leader are said to be soulthreatening. Anyone leaving the group is warned about harsh consequences.
Chanting and Singing. Members are subjected to constant repetition, which blocks their rational thought procecses.
Childlike Dependence. The leader demands absolute submission to his control.
No Questions. Followers are taught to accept without question the revelations and interpretations of their leaders.
Dress. Conformity of dress is encouraged to suppress individuality.
Elitism.Every religious leader outside the group is said to be satanic or, at best, deceived by evil conspiracy.
( Adapted from: The Cult Crisis, Citizens Freedom Foundation.)
Such methods sound very different from those advocated by the apostle Paul, when with regard to persuasion he said:
A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will (2 Tim. 2:24-26).
The result of DRG indoctrination tends to follow a pattern. While all of us need to look for dangerous thinking in ourselves, there are certain patterns that keep showing up in DRGs.
Dependence on gifted leaders, who by claiming to speak for God put themselves above question.
Misguided reaction to the excesses, compromises, and hypocrisy of traditional religion.
Withdrawal from society, in the conviction that “we alone” are making sacrifices worthy of God.
Cutting off all outside sources of information and accountability.
View of truth changes from what is honest to what is in the interest of the group.
Self-justification based on the belief that outsiders are under the control of Satan.
Loss of freedom as individual thoughts, feelings, and choices are increasingly replaced by group thoughts, feelings, and decisions.
Loss of conscience as the group and its leaders draw the individual into behaviors (often sexual) that destroy moral courage.
Adustment of expectations from what was originally promised to what is received.
Fear of leaving the group under the threat of loss of eternal life and reward.
These are some of the conditions that often develop in groups that end up betraying the trust of their followers. We need to keep in mind, however, the seductive way in which such conditions develop. The errors of a group often show up slowly-through the tactic of “Bait and Switch”. It is the kind of deception that can show up not only in others but in and among ourselves as well.